


Silver City Risen

by Sophonisba



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Crack, Multi, Operas, Post Season 1, Unreliable Narrator, metafictual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-24
Updated: 2011-08-24
Packaged: 2017-10-23 00:39:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/244342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sophonisba/pseuds/Sophonisba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In some ways, Sora had the last word, after all.</p><p> </p><p>  <em>(Operatic version of history, with added love affairs and tragic death.)</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Silver City Risen

# Excerpts from An Introduction to Galactic Opera, A New Translation

### Volume One

  


####  _Translator's Note_

  
_[...]This translation removes several egregious errors, most notably the use of "treble" to represent Pegasus "triphilla." While both obviously derive from a_ triplex _-equivalent stem, the range of "triphilla" most commonly corresponds to Tellurian "coloratura (soprano)," and it has been so translated. There was a suggestion that "treble" should be used for male sopranos, as it is in Great Britain, but we have instead used it to translate the role "clara," which covers most of the roles of female non-coloratura sopranos. ("Medja-clara," which we have followed our predecessors in translating "mezza," includes some dramatic soprano as well as mezza-soprano; here, again, the lines are blurred, as are the lines between_ medja-clara _and_ alta _["mezza" and "contralto"].)_

_We have, nevertheless, chosen to keep the distinction between inherently high male voices ("soprano" and "alto") and men singing falsetto ("countertenor")._  


### Volume Two

##  _SILVER CITY RISEN_

  


##### -introduction-

  
Vashok Rhenn was one of the few Satedans to survive their world's destruction. The last of the great Satedan prime-singers spent some time touring the worlds with one of the traveling companies, performing classics to raise wealth for his exiled people, before he was sought to play the lead role in a new opera, written in Ringspeech expressly for the purpose of touring.

The opera was the maiden full-length work of the first of the great Genii composers, Ha Sora, based on the recent real-life raising and siege of the City of the Ancestors. It was touted as being based directly on what was known of the Silver City's most recent rise and fall and as containing music from or directly based on that of the Atlanteans, as learnt by Ha Sora, who had long guested with them. (While this remains one of her better-known works, she is probably best known for her early one-act opera _Kinayus Fafya on Eluva_ ; her ballets _Tyra, Comet of the Southern Shore_ and _The Evolution and Destruction of the Dinosaurs_ ; her satiric opera _The Exploits of Maqlus Maximya Mentyla Medicinus_ [where the medicinal mentyla had its own singer, a soprano to Maximya's tenor]; and the Draculan [Extended] Trilogy of operas [-- _Dracula; or, the Un-Dead Wraithwolf_ ; -- its prequel _Jon Harker, the Guest of Comet Dracula_ ; -- their sequel _The Wizard fan-Helsing's Goodson_ (more usually known as _Goodson fan-Helsing_ ); -- and the trilogy's peculiar grandchildren, _Mamuwalde, Prince of Nigredo_ and _Wraithwolf Hunter, Son of Man, the Anointed_ ].) 

* * *

##### -notes-

  
 _Silver City Risen_ was the first of the traditional grand operas to assign a leading, romantic role to a tenor; as well as reuniting Satedan prime-singer Vashok Rhenn and Hoffan prima donna Ha d'Arla, it inaugurated a new phase for tenor Parn Kalim after an early career of playing comic roles and villains and opened the way to starring roles for entire male voices.

After a first trial in the more secluded areas and a disheartening response from, of all worlds, Daunt, a compromise was reached and the recitative prologue and epilogue written by a farmwife of that world, Kina jen Sardukann. While no other writings of hers survive, the simple prose and blank verse, set to Ha Sora's quiet accompaniment, have been praised as some of the most moving of Middle Period Grand Opera.

One of the earlier showings of the finished version was attended by visiting traders who identified themselves as Terrestrians, belonging to the survivors of the City of the Ancestors. They pronounced the climactic scene startlingly accurate in many respects and demanded to know who had conveyed as much to the librettists and composer. While it is certain that someone did so, Ha Sora and her fellow-writers preserved the anonymity of their source, and it remains unknown to this day.

During most of the initial tour, several incidents, ranging from the inconvenient to the downright embarrassing, occurred to Ha Sora on worlds that were later known as Terrestrian trading partners. It is traditionally assumed that these were the work of elements resentful of the Terrestrians that dared not strike directly at them; one may recall, however, that the Tellurians also gave our galaxy the saying _Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger_.

* * *

#####  ` -cast-`

  
`MAJOR-CAPTAIN SHEPPARD, duke of Atlantis ................................. soprano`  
`ELIZABETH WYR, prince of Atlantis ........................................ treble`  
`RODNI MCKAY, chief wizard of Atlantis .................................... tenor`  
`TEYLA EMMAGAN, prince of Athos and first lady of Atlantis ................ coloratura`  
`CARSON BEKKET, chief medicine man of Atlantis ............................ alto`  
`SUBCAPTAIN FORD .......................................................... soprano`  
`SAGES .................................................................... coloratura`  
`.......................................................................... mezzas`  
`.......................................................................... mezzo`  
`.......................................................................... alto`  
`.......................................................................... countertenor`  
`SOLDIERS ................................................................. tenors`  
`.......................................................................... contralto`  
`.......................................................................... baritones(2)`  
`.......................................................................... bass-baritone`  
`SING, a young sage ....................................................... alto`  
`QAWOOR, a young soldier .................................................. treble`  
`ATHOSIANS ................................................................ coloratura`  
`.......................................................................... trebles`  
`.......................................................................... sopranos(2`)  
`KOHN, dictator of the Penates ............................................ bass`  
`SHERA, warrior of the Penates ............................................ mezza`  
`RHADED, wizard of the Penates ............................................ baritone`  
`PENAT SOLDIERS ........................................................... baritones`  
`.......................................................................... bass-baritones`  
`DRUHIN, chancellor of Hoff ............................................... alto`  
`PERNA, medicine woman of Hoff ............................................ coloratura`  
`HOFFANS .................................................................. trebles`  
`.......................................................................... mezzas`  
`.......................................................................... tenors`  
`WRAITH QUEEN(S) .......................................................... contralto`  
`WRAITH ................................................................... bass-baritones`  
`.......................................................................... basses`  
`ATHAR .................................................................... coloratura`  
`FIRST DUKE OF ATLANTIS ................................................... baritone`  


* * *

#### -summary-

 ** _Prologue._** On a grassy hillside dotted with carved white stones, four people -- ELIZABETH, RODNI, TEYLA, and CARSON -- are seated. They each speak a short monologue, from which it is apparent that they have survived a great disaster and are planning to rebuild, although the import of Rodni opening with "I eventually began talking again, of course" is not readily apparent.

 ** _Act 1._** Major-captain Sheppard, singing the Tellurian song " _This looks familiar_ " in his own language, lands a flying machine inside a cave and joins Elizabeth, Rodni, Carson, and the Tellurian expedition as they march deeper into the cave and through the Ring of the Ancestors at its center. The set turns as they march out into the sunken Silver City, and everyone onstage joins in "Wonder of wonders, marvel of marvels."

Rodni discoveres that they cannot remain long underwater, and the duke of Atlantis leads the soldiers out through the Ring to go exploring. They come to the world of Athos, where they are promptly attacked by Wraith, who are entirely unfamiliar to the innocent Tellurians. Most of them and the Athosians are captured, including the Athosian female prince Teyla. The Major-captain leads all the survivors back to the Silver City, where he and Elizabeth (with some help) sing "We can't / I must" while the Wraith's Ring is tracked to one high in the skies above their spawning grounds. At last Rodni reveals his latest discovery: flying ships that pass through the Ring. Sheppard's aria "Flight" soon transforms into the trio "Puddle-jumper?", and he and Subcaptain Ford are off to storm a Wraith citadel and rescue their comrades.

The rescue, an amazing blend of hard-beating polyphonous song most noted for the Wraith Queen's dying aria "The cub you have slain; the sabretooth wakes" (anticipating the climactic battle in Ha Sora's _Tyra_ and most of the action scenes in her _Wenniver and Kolya_ ), is not without its cost; the Major-captain is forced to slay his commanding officer, and it is a somber troop that returns to the Silver City, ready to lead its people out in a desperate exodus.

The city, however, rises from the deeps to greet the dawn of a new day. The joyful Athosians offer an alliance, with their prince's hand in their polygamous marriage ritual; the prince Teyla joins with the two men who rescued her and Rodni the chief sage in "We bind together this day," better known as the "Athosian Wedding Song," in which eventually the entire ensemble joins in.

 ** _Act 2._** Teyla and her new household come to the land of the Penates, offering trade. The Wraith attack in the middle of it, and while the Penates suddenly produce mighty weapons, they would still have fallen to the Wraith had not the Atlanteans joined in with mightier weapons yet and captured a Wraith. One of the few casualties, however, was SHERA's father; she sends them back through the Ring with her aria "Vengeance" ringing in their ears. As they leave, the last few notes of her aria modulate into the beginning of KOHN's "Unjust"; playing on the anger and envy of the Penates, he leads all of them to shout that they must take the City of the Ancestors for themselves.

The next scene is a split-stage between the Silver City and the land of Hoff. The Hoffans have just discovered their wonder drug; Teyla and her men and Carson pass through to learn more about it, as Elizabeth and Druhin on their separate sides of the Ring exhort their sages and medicine men to discover a cure. In the City of the Ancestors, Sing and Qawoor (who had already expressed interest in each other in their parts of "Wonder of wonder, marvel of marvels" and "We bind together this day") begin the rapturous duet "A heart full with love"; this is soon taken up by Carson and Perna, obviously extremely taken with each other; by Teyla, who uses the same melody to sing of how she, no longer a maid and ripe for marriage, has bound herself to three men whom she could love and three men who, obedient to their codes of honor, have never once pressed attention upon her; by Sheppard and McKay, who sing in alternating lines of their deep, passionate, and obviously hopelessly unrequited love for the other; and by Ford, who sings of his love for his city and his task and his friends and his fear that it cannot all last.

The song ends as Carson and Perna discover a serum that they believe will work, and the Major-captain's household collects their captive Wraith to try it out. He reaches for the Hoffan test subject, rears back theatrically, and dies upon the spot. The Hoffans rapturously sing "Our main-gauche, shield and blade," even as Carson tries to warn of possible dangers and Perna begins to act ill.

The Hoffans decide to go through with it, even though it will kill half of them. Rodni and Ford return through the Ring to Atlantis in time for the reprise of "A heart full with love": this time, Sheppard and Teyla sing of their love for their people, their desire to fight to preserve them but their unwillingness to let a single one of them die; Druhin joins in, singing of his love for his people, his pride that they will not let fear diminish the sacrifices they have made but will carry on in memory of their dead; Elizabeth, too, joins in, singing of her love for the city and of her love for Major-captain Sheppard, which she dare not express lest it destabilize the city; Ford's lines have changed to a growing certainty that a storm is coming, and Rodni sings of his love for the clear beauty of science, which was and is and shall be, before human beings crawled up from the muck and long after not even their bones remain. Sing and Qawoor and Carson and Perna are left to sing of romantic love, which finishes on the Atlantean side with the young couple pledging their troth and on the Hoffan side with Perna expiring in Carson's arms. He returns through the Ring, flanked by Sheppard and Teyla, as a mighty storm begins.

In the third scene, the Atlanteans and Athosians leave the city as Sheppard, Elizabeth, and Rodni sing "The storm comes" from the wings. Kohn leads the Penates through the ring into an emptied City of the Ancestors, singing "Reclaiming our own again," beginning one of the most confusing scenes of the opera; while Kohn and Elizabeth's duet/argument "We heirs deserve" is justly acclaimed for its brilliance, it is not at all clear why the Atlantean soldiers guarding the gate believed the Penates to be the Athosians; where Teyla, Ford, and Bekket were or how they got back; how Shera and Teyla manage to fight a duel without running into any of the other warriors running around the city; or exactly what Rodni did to defend the city from the storm -- it seems that the librettists there were content to let the characters sing "Deep wizardry begins herein" without bothering to consider a rationale. At the end, after Major-captain Sheppard has killed all the invading Penates save for Kohn, Shera, and Rhaded, who flee through the ring, the skies brighten and the Tellurians and Athosians return, bringing with them the Goddess Athar. The few remaining in the City of the Ancestors join in her escort's welcoming song of "At last we can see clear;" only Rodni stands aside, clutching his wounded arm and uttering dark warnings.

 ** _Dance._** While in most operas of the period the dance was a trifling matter, suitable either to give one a break from the plot or to allow the weary opera-goer to leave, stroll about, use the facilities, obtain refreshments, etc., the dance in Silver City Risen is noteworthy in that it helps set the stage for Act 3. Various small parties of "Atlanteans" enter stage center through a Ring, dancing cheerful meetings with people costumed as various famous and now-culled cultures; after each one, the Wraith slowly advance from the wings, making off with the inhabitants of the worlds and at last menacing the now-trembling Atlanteans as they back slowly through the Ring.

 ** _Act 3._** Athar walks the halls of the City of the Ancestors as if born to it, singing the duet "This fair city" with Major-captain Sheppard as Rodni darts from side to side, desperately trying to persuade at least one person of Athar's ill omen without success. At last, as Athar and Sheppard ascend the topmost tower of Atlantis, Rodni finds voice in the aria "Cherish."

Atop the tower, Athar and Sheppard's voices blend in the sublime "Destiny" until they vanish into bright light. Sheppard alone remains when the light is gone, singing the Tellurian song " _In the darkness I rise_ " as he slowly descends the tower, cutting off after the line " _Here they come_ " (Now they are come) to drop back into Ringspeech with the announcement that the Wraith are on their way to the City. The population of Atlantis scatters to hustle and bustle; Rodni among them, until Sheppard catches him by the arm and begins the duet "Now at last I see clear"/"Clear as mud." The two circle apart and together during it, drawing nearer at the intersection every time until the duet ends with them pressed together from shoulder to thigh, turning their heads to meet in a kiss.

In the next scene, the Wraith, offstage, sing "At last we have you" as the Atlanteans sing "If we can make it work," culminating in a report of the destruction of the remote defense platform. (Should the music here seem familiar, it is because Ha Sora would later revisit and rework these themes into the climax of _Jon Harker_ , the ensemble penultimate scene in _Dracula_ , and the end of the first act of _The Anointed_.)The Atlanteans scatter to finish preparing for nighttime siege; Elizabeth sings the aria "If you looked in my heart"; as she falls silent, Sing and Qawoor take it up as a duet before exiting stage right with their arms around each other, and then Sheppard and Rodni take the next verse, holding their hands out to Teyla and Ford as they sing that no one should have to be alone. Ford shakes his head and resumes patrolling; Teyla joins them as they exit stage left, leaving Elizabeth to reprise the aria as she laments that she must spend her life alone.

The next morning, the chorus of scientists sing "So much to learn, so much to know" as the soldiers man the defenses and report that the Wraith are throwing rocks. Elizabeth decrees that they must hold the Wraith off as long as possible before destroying Atlantis and the Ring; the knowledge they could take from the City of the Ancestors could mean the difference between life and death in their coming exile. As the death of the young suns seeded in the sky is reported, Major-captain Sheppard suggests that they could send an invisible ship to smite the Wraith had they a young sun, that the sages might be able to devise a way to send it unmanned, and that the Penates had been building one.

While the soldiers and sages sing "This bloody road," Elizabeth goes to meet with the Penates, offering the Mother-earth's weapons in return for Rhaded's young sun. Kohn, announcing that the Wraith have already struck Penatia, suggests in return that they give him the weapons they brought with him in return for her miserable life. As he menaces Elizabeth, Shera comes up to report to him; when he turns to listen to his subordinate, Rhaded shoots him in the back. In a reprise of "Vengeance," they inform Elizabeth that with the delivery of the Mother-earth's weapons, they will be quits.

Elizabeth returns with the sun in time for the climactic medley, in which the sages decree the sun too young for their purposes and work to make it greater; some of the Wraith invade the city, and the soldiers and Athosians go to defend it from them; the control method for the remote flying blows up, and Major-captain Sheppard announces "Well, I'm off," and departs for the wings, his voice joining that of the soldiers in, of all things, the traditional fey Satedan song "Oracle of Dudohn"; the defenders, although taking many Wraith with them, slowly fall, among them Qawoor (defending her new husband), Sing (defending the other non-soldiers in his group), and Ford (defending everyone); the Wraith Queen, aloft, sings of her impending victory; Sheppard, having mounted to the stage-heavens still-unseen, carries "Oracle of Dudohn" by himself, now, as the sages and other Athosians run back and forth carrying bundles through the Ring and reprising "So much to learn," the few remaining soldiers and Carson sing status updates, telling of the new wave of Wraith ships coming in behind the current besiegers, Elizabeth at stage center sings her defiance and intention to carry on somehow, and Rodni stage-left of her counts down until he, Sheppard's voice, and that of the Wraith Queen abruptly cut off.

The song of the others, however, continues, as a silent Rodni appoints himself the rearguard and caretaker of the destroying device while the rest abandon the City of the Ancestors. A coil on the device goes dim, and he moves to reconnect it as he is at last left alone. He barely gets it working when a singing Wraith enters the room and is upon him; Rodni raises his weapon, but somehow causes it to fall apart, and is nearly slain when Teyla, who had been presumed dead earlier, bursts into the room, kills the Wraith, and sings the aria "We will remember you" before taking Rodni's hand and leading him through the Ring, just before the destroying device activates.

 ** _Epilogue._** After the last fall of the curtain, it parts again on the same hillside where the opera began, where Elizabeth and Carson and Teyla in successive monologues tell that although the explosion was great enough for the Wraith to believe the City wrecked beyond redemption, in truth it only truly destroyed the Ring -- the only Ring that could have been made to lead back to the Mother-earth -- and the surrounding area, sinking the City back into the sea. But those of the people who managed to escape are surviving and thriving, here in this hidden place that they have found, and they have brought with them hope for the future; as Teyla lays her hands protectively over her stomach, she tells that they brought with them the knowledge to one day make the City of the Ancestors rise again, not only through the seas, but through the air, to fly through the airless deeps of heaven as of old it flew from the Mother-earth. During the monologues, the other surviving Atlanteans -- Tellurian and Athosian -- have slowly joined them onstage; now at last they sing the finale "We will rise again," each of the four main survivors having their own solo, and then joined by the voices of the fallen in one last mighty chord of sound.

**Author's Note:**

> " _This looks familiar_ " is "I'm Going To Go Back There Someday" from _The Muppet Movie_ ; " _In the darkness I rise_ " is Kansas' "Icarus II"; "Oracle of Dudohn" is loosely inspired by A. E. Housman's poem "The Oracles." (Most of the other music sounds like a symphony orchestra playing rock music from the latter half of twentieth-century Earth, if anyone's interested.)
> 
>  _(And I'm not sure whether_ Van Helsing _or_ Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter _would make more sense as operas, but it'd be kind of hard for them to make much less. [Also -- hey! Music!] ^_^ )_


End file.
